


Lost Hues

by hollowbirds (torturousthings)



Series: Everything Seems To Be Estranged [2]
Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blood, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kinda, M/M, Needles, POV First Person, POV First Person Tyler, Sad, Self-Harm, Tattoos, josh as a ghost because tyler's hallucinating, joshler - Freeform, otherwise this will be very vERY confusing, so please read the main work first, this is a ficlet!!, tyler lost josh, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 19:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10883127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torturousthings/pseuds/hollowbirds
Summary: One dot, three dashes.Four little symbols that, once put together, have more meaning than each day I’m going through. God knows I’m only getting through them because of him.or, Tyler's ficlet.





	Lost Hues

**Author's Note:**

> this is a ficlet from [Everything Seems To Be Estranged](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10788774/chapters/23930832), from Tyler's point of view! 
> 
> It's set the morning of the day [Chapter 3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10788774/chapters/24016497) begins - exactly two years after Josh's death.
> 
> song for this ficlet: [Skin & Bones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XtpGTnnQ9g) by Marianas Trench

_12 September._

 

 

The needle sits on the side of the white ceramic sink, and I wonder how many holes I’ll have to put in my skin until his initial’ll be etched onto it forever. 

 

One dot, three dashes. 

 

Four little symbols that, once put together, have more meaning than each day I’m going through. God knows I’m only getting through them because of him. My hands are shaking and the familiar pain behind my eyes tells me I need to get myself together. I can’t. 

 

I can’t, because exactly two years ago, he was in my arms. 

 

He drew his last breath and his hand went limp in mine, lifeless fingers steadily growing colder as the blood in my veins kept flowing, turning darker and darker. It was as if his warmth was leaving him to tint my blood black, like a burning log. Life turning to carbon. I think about that sometimes, and it’s almost as if I’m carrying a bit of him with me at all times.

 

But not now. 

 

Right now, the darkness flowing within me is overwhelming. I close my eyes and reach for the sink, lean against it. My head is spinning. I hope I don’t throw up. 

 

His shirt doesn’t smell like him anymore, though I’ve only worn it once since. It’s stowed away in the back of my closet three hundred and sixty four days of the year, as if that could make me forget anything. 

 

Everything reminds me of him. 

 

Canaries in the glass windows of pet shops the exact shade of yellow his hair had been dyed, advertisements for a show he’ll never get to watch. Clothing. People.  

 

Blue. Pink. Green. A palette in which I could associate every pigment with a memory of him.

 

Him trying to show off on his skateboard, a cap backwards on his head. Red.

 

Him laughing at my incompetence at eating ice-cream. I laughed along and he kissed the sugar off my lips. Pink.

 

The pure bliss in his eyes after we rode on a rollercoaster for the first time. Mauve. 

 

The late night talks and the lazy morning cuddles. Blue. 

 

Him. A swirl of colour that always looked good together. Every shade possible reunited in one human being. 

 

Colours that suited him more than anyone else in the entire world. He was the colour, I was the monochrome. Always. The only thing we had in common was our blood. 

 

Ruby red. 

 

My vision blurs slightly and the man in the mirror doesn’t have a face anymore. I reach for the needle and try to pick it up three times before I manage to: I’m shaking so bad and my fingers seem to have a mind of their own. As if they knew better than me. As if they’re trying to protect me from myself.

 

But now the little metal object is between my index and thumb, and I wonder if I’ll even need any ink. My blood should be black enough. 

 

I think about how ironic it is that now, since the red has already leaked out, I can expose my veins as much as I want without consequences. I laugh at that thought, at the faceless man in the mirror, at the needle quivering between my fingers, but it comes out hoarse and choked. I lift a hand up to my face, and it comes away wet. 

 

I’m crying. 

 

I wipe my hand on my pants instead of my shirt. His shirt. I can’t call it mine. 

 

My hand is still shaking as I bring it to my skin, the point of the needle grazing it. That's when I realise there’s no stencil. I remember; the tattoo artist that did those already on my skin had had a stencil. So I leave the bathroom, discarding the needle on the side of the sink once more. I need a pen, and find one on the floor of my room; a bottle of ink sits on my desk, and I grab it too. In case my blood isn’t enough. In case I don’t bleed. 

 

But I will. I’ll make myself. 

 

I make my way back to the bathroom and sit down on the tiled floor, the needle now next to my leg. Clumsily, I trace the pattern on my left hand, between my thumb and index. 

 

One dot, three dashes. 

 

There’s something comforting about the rhythm of those words, so I repeat them in my head. 

 

One dot, three dashes. 

 

As if they could bring him back. 

 

The blue ink of the ballpoint pen’s traced the four symbols now, and the dot’s slightly off centre. I draw it again, making it become a blot of blue. I notice it’s a few shades darker than his hair used to be. My vision gets blurred again, and the tiles become one big, blank canvas. I blink and shake my head and everything goes back to normal, though I can see shiny drops decorating the floor. I don’t want to think about what they mean. 

 

I leave the pen on the floor and pick up the needle. It’s tough to aim exactly at the dot, so I give up after a few seconds of trying. 

 

The pain is slight at first, nearly imperceptible, and I’m disappointed, so I press harder. A drop of jet black liquid soon appears at the point of it, and my skin is stinging as if the blood was toxic to the touch. I pull the needle out and the point is tinted with black; I bring it down again soon enough. I deserve the pain. Every hole I put in my skin is just a fraction of what I owe him. 

 

***

It turns out that the blood isn’t enough to make anything show, so I open the ink bottle and spill some on the back of my hand. It instantly runs between my fingers, creating lines of black that look like a smaller, spider-like hand. I can’t really see the stencil anymore, so I try my best to remember where the blue marks were. I keep going. The ink is dripping and I can see my own fingerprints everywhere, as if I needed more reminders of my state. 

 

Alive. Barely. 

 

The pain is still there and it feels like my hand’s burning now, like a white-hot rod’s pressed to it. I keep going. My mind is hazy and his face floats before my eyes from time to time, a disapproving, bright-eyed ghost. 

 

_It’s for you, Josh._

 

_Everything I do, it’s for you._

 

_I’m alive because of you._

 

_Because I owe you that much, Josh. I owe you everything._

 

I see him frown at me, his hair the exact same shade of blue as it was two years ago, and, for a second, I’m not sure whether he’d want this. All of this. The suffering, the hazy days. The staying alive. 

 

Maybe I’d be better off with him. Maybe I should go join him, wherever he is. 

 

But, for a few seconds, my vision clears up and the white tiles of the walls stop blending in with the ones of the floor, and his ghost vanishes. I wonder what he’d say if he could see me now, sitting down on my — _our_ — bathroom floor, hands covered in ink mingled with blood. I wonder if he’d still love me if he saw me like this. 

 

The real me. 

 

The me without him. 

 

I let the haze take over again; it’s easier not to think. Easier to poke holes in my skin to prove my love to him. Or my guilt. I’m not sure. The pain in my hand eases the one in my mind oh-so slightly, so I guess it’s worth it. Though I’m not sure I deserve to be relieved of the suffering. I killed him. 

 

_I killed him._

 

_IkilledhimIkilledhimIkilledhimIkilledhim._

 

The needle sinks into my skin deeper, and I can barely feel the sharp pain. I’m not looking at my hand anymore. Tears blur my vision and air becomes hard to find; this bathroom is so small, and yet it used to fit both of us. The two of us. 

 

Two became one. I killed him. 

 

I gasp for air. It feels like the ink isn’t on my hand, but filling up my lungs instead, swirls of black so similar to my blood. It feels like I’m suffocating, like someone is holding a belt to my neck and slowly pulling it tighter and tighter. It feels like I’m dying. 

 

Some part of my brain hopes I will. 

 

I don’t know if I do. 


End file.
